Early Retirement Extreme Forums

CBS segment on FIRE

https://www.cbsnews.com/video/breaking- ... -planning/

Very dumbed down, but interesting to see it on a network.

I choked a couple times during the lead-in...
"New concept"
"Mostly Millennials"

The rest was solid.

I can't watch the video somehow ... but yes, lately this has been framed as some kind of surprising new millennial innovation. This is also the angle that I've approached with from journalists in 2018. Why now all of a sudden? Why millennials?

My answer is ...

a) Echo-chamber effect. While this has been going on for years, it's just only now that the media has started paying attention, and now everybody wants to write an article whereas 10 years ago, it was hard to push one past the editor. Also, final legs of a giant bull market.

b) Because in 2018, the youngest GenX is now 37+ years old while the youngest boomer is 54+. Those who retired extremely early in those groups have already gone and done it some ten--thirty years ago

I think I need to work on my answer though because I get the impression that this is not what they want to hear

I knew it. Everybody's gonna jump on board and its not gonna be cool anymore.

The reporter constantly referenced social groups, implying that millennials' affinity for social media made FIRE easier. That's not wrong.

I also liked the reporter's comment that it isn't a 'suffocating lifestyle' ... a good way to describe what people assume it is.

So we're a cult eh?

This whole video is just booooooooooooooooo!!

cmonkey wrote: ↑

Thu Jul 12, 2018 3:28 pm

So we're a cult eh?

This whole video is just booooooooooooooooo!!

I mean some of the FIRE stuff can look a little cultish when looking from the outside in since we buck so many orthodoxies of the west, but so long as Jacob, MMM etc aren't maintaining their own personal harem's through the tenets of FIRE I think we're good.

@jacob:
You can't watch it? I get it. It's like Balanchine sitting in the front row of the school auditorium watching fat high school girls performing Swan Lake... pure torture!

Any press is good press...but this cult this is getting kinda old.

@clarice - No, for technical (vid codex) reasons. However, jp sent me a link, so I've watched it.

Could this be the final nail in the coffin? FIRE cult goes mainstream and collapses the consumer growth dependant economy, meaning no one gets to retire anymore, but hey, we don't need to go to work making widgets anymore.

Way to go guys!

Strangely I take pretty high offense to these ideas becoming more popular and I think it's because I take it as an intrusion into a very important part of my life. I need to keep it in perspective that our group really is a sub-cult of the FIRE cult and I think it is largely impenetrable to the masses. FIRE at 25K-30K/person with minimal reliance on skill is still the most popular.

Anyone else feel that way about the privacy of this?

cmonkey wrote: ↑

Fri Jul 13, 2018 9:46 am

Anyone else feel that way about the privacy of this?

Nope.

Not really, and based on my experience with other people though it is getting more exposure in the media most people still find it weird and would never even consider doing it.

Don't worry, masses will never take an action (unless hungry).

@cmonkey

My supposedly smart “friends” are still ridiculing me. They are fairly representative of the majority of the educated middle class.

You have nothing to fear.

FIRE(/ERE) might get 15 minutes in the limelight, but it's not like awareness is the only barrier to entry. Embracing this way of life requires:

- Conscientiousness
- Agency
- Self-reliance
- Long-term, strategic thinking
- Creativity

If we suddenly experience a massive change of consciousness in the world, my perhaps reduced SWR won't be bothering me too much.